🚀 go-pugleaf

vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) writes:

>In article <mbt.717961736@Able.MKT.3Com.Com>, mbt@ESD.3Com.COM (Brad Turner) writes:
>> vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) writes:
>> ...
>> >That's a reasonable statement.  Why does 3Com allow their boxes
>> >to do FDDI-ethernet bridging?  When they drop 4K IP FDDI packets?
>> 
>> Because in some instances it solves real customer problems. As a vendor
>> it is our challenge to educate/advise customers as to the pros and cons
>> of various methods of interconnecting networks and help them design
>> the best solution to fit their specific needs. In some instances
>> translation bridging is a valid solution.


>I understand that kind of pressure.  There are always salescreatures
>who find multi-million dollar deals that the system (yours or mine)
>does not quiet fit.  The salescritters I deal with never, and even some
>management often does not understand my concern that while doing the
>deal is good for this quarter's revenue numbers and this month's
>commission check, selling a bad solution now can prevent ever selling
>anything to that account again.  Or even selling anything other
>accounts which have in future years hired someone who worked at the
>first account.  I don't even try to convey my fear and loathing for the
>support hassles, arguments, and verbal abuse generated by such a bad
>fit.

That's where the education I mentioned above comes in. If you take the time
to advise your sales folk and their customers as to the issues at hand you
are doing the best you can.

> [...example deleted...]

>There are several companies selling FDDI-ether bridges that do not work
>in the presense of real FDDI hosts using UDP.  I continue to wonder
>what their customers think after they discover they have purchased
>bridges that work "some of the time for some traffic."  No matter how
>great the bridge may be otherwise, do they ever deal with that vendor
>again?

Again I harp on the education issue. You must be up front and honest
with the customer during the first sale and let them up front they
might be bitten in the future.

>I know that I would be skeptical of any company that tried to sell me
>an FDDI-ether bridge that just dropped 4K UDP/IP/FDDI packets, because
>if the bridge vendor does not understand the importance of 4K FDDI
>packets and just tells me to "change the MTU", then the bridge vendor
>may not understand other, more important issues.

If after telling somebody they might shoot themselves in the foot I
firmly believe they still have the right to. The whole issue boils
down to customer choice and education.

IP aside how does SGI deal with ether to FDDI translation bridging
of protocols that don't use byte level acks? Just courious...


-brad-

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Brad Turner | 5400 Bayfront Plaza  | Marketing Engineer   | (408) 764-5261
3Com Corp.  | Santa Clara CA, 95052| mbt@NSD.3Com.Com     | (408) 764-5002 fax